Meditation + Spirituality

[-evil-duerr-]

This past year I was lucky enough to be introduced to meditation/breathing technique as well as some brief asian philosophy on spirituality.

I learned how to practice meditation while sober, but have more recently incorporated it with marijuana. Since doing this I've been able to reduce my thc consumption by 75%, and the benefits keep getting brighter.

If anyone else has had experiences with this, please share! Life has gotten much easier since I've welcomed the possibility of spirituality back into my life after years of being agnostic.

[esoter1c]

Originally Posted by -evil-duerr-

This past year I was lucky enough to be introduced to meditation/breathing technique as well as some brief asian philosophy on spirituality.

I learned how to practice meditation while sober, but have more recently incorporated it with marijuana. Since doing this I've been able to reduce my thc consumption by 75%, and the benefits keep getting brighter.

If anyone else has had experiences with this, please share! Life has gotten much easier since I've welcomed the possibility of spirituality back into my life after years of being agnostic.

I haven't smoked weed in 7 months. My dreams are always lucid now, everynight. I just woke up from a dream I was controlling, I was at work when the ground gave way and I fell through the earth into space, obv. I realised I was dreaming at this point and decided to just float for awhile. After relaxing so as not to wake, I just kind of flew through the universe. I could never do this when I smoked weed, even if I became lucid I would wake up, I don't know what it is but I think weed uses some of the melatonin or dmt maybe when awake to produce the high it does, making it so you dream heavier and can't break through into lucidity. That was the best dream I've ever had just now, before this one it was when I became lucid and flew the whole west coast down to san francisco. This one I was flying/floating through the universe for what felt like infinity.

[tiedye]

Engaged Buddhism man... it's seriously a powerful practice. I've been reading and practicing it for about four or five months... and while I still have a long way to go, just what I've learned already helps me out dearly (when I don't let life overwhelm me). Keep it simple, keep it casual. These are things you can do daily without changing your lifestyle drastically. I meditate while washing dishes, playing an instrument, staring off into space before I fall asleep at night. Just learning to look into the present moment and allowing yourself to be a part of it is entirely spiritual.

A lot of people dig on Buddhism saying it's all about suffering, but what it really is about is accepting that we suffer and learning to transform it. Check out some of Thich Nhat Hanh's writing. "The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings" is a great read for someone starting to get into spirituality but isn't looking for a set of rules or a drastic change in lifestyle.

But that's my two cents, really. It's all personal.

Mindful Breathing and Mindful Walking have become a source of soulful salvation in recent months for me. Lately, I've been finding them not enough but that's entirely all my doing. These are two methods I practice daily:

Mindful Breathing exercises such as counting inhale (1) exhale (1), inhale (2) exhale (2) ... inhale (10) exhale (10), inhale (9) ... and so on repeatedly as your breathing NATURALLY slows are immensely important in my meditation. I find that forcing deep breaths does you no good. Breath normally, as you would if you were reading a book. Focus on your breath. Make that breathe the only thing you are conscious of. It will slow down naturally because it feels your cherishing the very air that is entering your lungs. As it slows, so does your mind and then you become fully present in the moment - the only place life occurs.

Mindful Walking is much the same. Choose a tree or something and walk to it, ensuring that you are entirely conscious of each step. Don't think about anything save for each step and the joy you receive from being able to do take pleasure from such a simple act. Your life would be a lot worse if you were unable to walk to a tree whenever you felt like it.

When you're truly mindful of things, you can see into the interbeing nature of life. Everything is one and the same. Negative becomes positive becomes happiness becomes suffering becomes rock becomes roll. Check it out, it might be for you. It's at least an interesting subject to read up on and it'll lead to other concepts that you would otherwise have never come across.